Pilgrim Type

With Thanksgiving fast approaching here in the New World, I decided to do a bit of research into a subject I knew little about: what types did the Pilgrims use? Right off, I’ve had to enlarge the definition of ‘use’ and perhaps also ‘pilgrim,’ since English America didn’t see its own printing press until several years after the famous November 1621 feast at Plymouth.

It was nearly 20 years later when the first printing press of the English colonies was set up in Henry Dunster’s house, in 1638. Dunster would become the first president of Harvard University. The arrangements were made by Joseph Glover who selected a printer, a Mr. Day, and transported him and his family to Cambridge. The first job printed at the Cambridge Press was done on half a broadsheet, and was known as the Freeman’s Oath. No originals survive.

We should end here. Several printers arrived in America after the establishment of the Cambridge Press. William Bradford famously started the New York Gazette as an escape from the constraints on publishing in early Pennsylvania. Benjamin Franklin can receive some credit for popularizing the types of Caslon and Baskerville in America. Though since we don’t generally count earlier colonialists of the 18th century among the Pilgrims, these must wait their turn.